Quote of the day: Maxed out on Barry O

A serf in the days of King John, Max Keiser argues, was in many ways better off than some US voters in 2012.

“Because in the age of Robin Hood,” Keiser says, “at least the process of theft was transparent. The barons came to your house. They whacked you over the head then they took all your money.” Even if the poor didn’t exactly empathise with their oppressors, Keiser adds, they could at least comprehend their methods. “And the serfs,” he continues, “did enjoy a modicum of stability. They got something in return for their enslavement. A small plot of land. Shelter. A relationship with the lord of the manor.” In the modern age of “financial tyranny” orchestrated by what Keiser refers to as “the banksters” in charge of the major financial institutions in the US and Europe, he believes, “We have reverted to a more pernicious kind of neo-feudalism. The instruments of larceny have changed; that’s all.”

What better time, you might ask, to have the opportunity to vote in a presidential election? But the real forces which shape the destiny of his homeland, Keiser says, have long been impervious to democratic pressure.

“Barack Obama,” he maintains, “has been a huge disappointment. He reneged on every one of his campaign promises except one: he did buy his kids a dog. Of course he could be replaced in this election, but if that happens we will simply inherit a different version of the same thing, just as we have done in the US for the past 30 years. The guy in the White House,” he believes, “is really taking his orders from finance.”